...It is thought-provoking that analyzing Phaedrus by reading the written words of an author who is also analyzing the text is part of what the dialogue and story-line are trying to convey to the reader. At first look the reader might think the intention of the book is to dissect the subject of love. This is demonstrated by the dialogue in the book itself, and seems to speak to the point that Socrates is trying to make. Love is used as the subject of the speeches. The very point of the book itself so far seems to be the opposite; some readers may analyze the words that describe love to be the central theme and intended subject of Phaedrus, when it really about the methods and intentions of the speechmaker and dialoguer. The irony is that the way...
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...Socrates’ and Love In the Symposium written by Plato we are recounted on the speeches made on the praise of love, by six different men. Beginning with Phaedrus, leading up to Socrates. In Phaedrus speech he sees Love as the oldest of Gods (Plato 10). He indicates how powerful an army would become simply by composing it of lovers. All because one is their absolute greatest, less cowardly in the presence of their lover. Therefore, more willingly to die for each other. Phaedrus is quoted saying, “Love is the most ancient of the gods, the most honored, and the most effective in enabling human beings to quire courage and happiness, both in life and death” (13). He viewed dying for your lover as extremely admirable and brave, and believed even the gods viewed it this way. Phaedrus gives an example of Alcestis, who dies for her husband and then her life is returned by the gods because of her “fine act” (11)....
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...submission: Question one How does Phaedrus respond to Lysias’ speech? What do you think evokes Phaedrus’ response? Include a quotation from the text to support your conclusion. Phaedrus mentions that Lysias speech about love after fashion ingeniously proves that a non lover should be accepted instead of the lover. Phaedrus response is evoked by the fact that Lysias’ speech has clearly demonstrated the difference between a lover and non lover. The speech has proven weighty benefits of being a non lover to a lover, for example a non lover is in control of his own consciousness, thus desires good, and not controlled by opinions of the general public. He asserts at the end of reading the speech to Socrates by emphasizing the excellence in use of language. He says, “Now, Socrates, what do you think? Is not the discourse excellent, more especially in the matter of the language?” Question two How does Socrates initially respond to Lysias’ speech at 234d? Read carefully, and explain what you think is going on here. Again, refer to the text to support your reading. Socrates does not respond to the content of Lysias speech at first instance. Rather he is mesmerized by the way Phaedrus delivers the speech to him. He becomes absorbed in the speech albeit because of Phaedrus presentation. Socrates believes Phaedrus is trying to show-off skills which clearly to him, Phaedrus is a novice as compared to him. He observes, “…And this I owe to you, Phaedrus, for I observed you while reading...
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...Forms of Love in Plato's Symposium Love, in classical Greek literature, is commonly considered as a prominent theme. Love, in present days, always appears in the categories of books, movies or music, etc. Interpreted differently by different people, Love turns into a multi-faceted being. In Plato’s work Symposium, Phaedrus, Pausania, Eryximachus, Aristophane and Agathon, each of them presents a speech to either praise or definite Love. Phaedrus first points out that Love is the primordial god; Pausanias brings the theme of “virtue” into the discussion and categorizes Love into “good” one or “bad” one; Eryximachus introduces the thought of “moderation’ and thinks that Love governs such fields as medicine and music; Aristophanes draws attention to the origin and purposes of Love; Agathon enunciates that the correct way to present an eulogy is first to praise its nature and gifts. As the last speaker, and the most important one, Socrates connects his ideas with Diotima of Mantinea’s story of Love’s origin, nature and purpose. Different from the earlier five speakers who regard Love as an object and praise different sides of it, Socrates, referring to Diotima’s idea, considers Love as a pursuit of beauty gradually from “physical beauty of people in general” (Symposium, Plato, 55) to the “true beauty” (55). The first five speeches bond with each other. Each of them mentions the opinions of the former one in order to either support or against them. However, just like the elements...
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...of differences between ancient Greek and Athenian writings, they also hold numerous similarities in things like their recurring themes—particularly that of women and their defiance against men. In ancient Greece, plays like Homer’s Odyssey as well as Sappho’s works of poetry introduced a common emphasis on love as a driving force behind women’s resistance; Athenian works like Euripides’ Medea and Hippolytus and Aristophanes' Assemblywomen, maintain this perspective in some cases, but further expand upon it by offering a more specific theme motivating these defiant acts and even share a common theme in the way that women execute these acts of resistance against men....
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...In the Gorgias and Phaedrus, Socrates, as portrayed by Plato, discusses the Good, the True, and the Beautiful and their divine relation to rhetoric. He defines the Good, True, and Beautiful as the most divine and perfect forms of goodness, truth, and beauty because they all seek to better one’s soul. Each of these elements can form a framework to distinguish the most just form of rhetoric. Defining justice as an action to better one’s soul, Socrates utilizes these characteristics to distinguish a just rhetorician from an unjust rhetorician. A rhetor’s motive determines whether the speech is pursuing the Good or if the rhetor prioritizes his own private interests. Applying this methodology to writings or speeches allows audiences to know when to trust the orator. For example, in Frederick Douglass’ speech, “What to The Slave is the Fourth of July,” Douglass...
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...Louise Cowan, in her introduction to The Terrain of Comedy, speaks about the four parts of the poetic universe as defined by Aristotle: lyric, tragedy, comedy and epic. Louise argues that the whole of redemption fits into these fours elements of poetry. Lyric is the realm of love, the “place of origins and sources…symbolized by the garden.” Lyric represents both the pre-Fall condition of man and the redemptive state. Tragedy is the loss of the garden; comedy is man enduring in the fallen world. Epic, however, restores man to his pre-Fall state. The epic “struggles to build or cleanse,” attempting to complete the journey to the new Eden, one which is “redeemed and made new.” Dante projects his redemptive journey in the Divine Comedy upon the conversation between Statius and Virgil. In Statius and Virgil’s conversation, Dante reveals the necessity of epic, its shortcomings, and lyrics role in redemption. The epic is the journey to redemption and Love lyric is the end. Dante, throughout the divine comedy, reveals the epic struggle. Virgil, the epic poet, does what the saint cannot,...
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...way. When it comes to the understanding of the nature of beauty the clear difference between Plato and Plotinus is that Plotinus believes that to understand the nature of beauty you must become Godlike and purified of all evil through the study of the “good” in beauty with self-control. Plato, on the other hand, believes that to understand beauty you must use self-control to resist the desire to possess what one may first see as beautiful to fully know the true nature of beauty. To Plato, one must learn to become a mirror image of that, which brings him desire through observation, rather than become pure or godlike as Plotinus believes. “There is no greater good than this that either human self-control or divine madness can offer a man” (Phaedrus 256B-256C). Plotinus believes that true beauty comes from absolute good which comes from the many forms of beauty that one may see or feel pleasure through. He believes to understand that “The soul must first be accustomed to look at beautiful practices, then beautiful works of men who are called “good”, and then to look at the soul of those who produce these beautiful works”(Plotinus 62). What this means is that Plotinus believes that you cannot see the true essence of beauty without giving your soul the ability to collect intellect on the manner of which you think is beautiful. One must first become knowledgeable of the simplest form of beauty and build off of that with intellect. Through intellect of the various forms of beauty, along...
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...Practical Philosophy November 2001 Plato’s theory of Love: Rationality as Passion Lydia Amir 'I … profess to understand nothing but matters of love.' Socrates in Plato’s Symposium. times, when due to their education and to political changes, women earned the right to love and to be loved as equals to men. When one dispels these misunderstandings related to the popular notion of Platonic love, one finds a great richness and depth in Plato’s theory of love. In explaining why love is so important to us and yet why it fails us so often, Plato’s view of love seems applicable to our time. It is common knowledge that a very high rate of divorce threatens our marriages. We expect a lot from the sexual passion we call love, but usually end up disappointed when the romance goes away. Yet we keep getting married, thinking that we are going to be the ones that will beat the system. If we fail, we change our partner and try again. We end up our love life as we began it, confused, afraid and as disappointed as we were hopeful. The malaise that characterises our love lives naturally finds its way to the philosophical consulting room. In this paper I shall attempt to show how Plato’s view of love can be helpful both in dispelling our confusion about love and in proposing some solutions to our suffering. A comprehensive account of Plato’s complex theory of love, an exhaustive presentation of the controversies involved in interpreting it or a thorough discussion of the problems it creates...
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...Platonic Love In the Symposium, which is normally dated at the beginning of the middle period, Plato introduces his theory of love. First thing to note is that in Plato’s theory, love is given and its existence is not questioned. The word love leaves the matter ambiguous as to whether we are discussing love in the normal, human, sense of the word, or if we are discussing desire in a much broader sense, but in this discussion we are only considering only love of type eros, love as a kind of desire that exists between two human beings. Symposium, is a dialogue by Plato, about a dinner party in honor of the tragedian Agathon, after they have finished eating Phaedrus suggests that each person in turn should make a speech about the praise of god of love. Symposium not only gives us theory of Forms in Diotima's discussion of the Form of Beauty, but it also gives us a number of varying perspectives on love. One more important thing to consider is that Diotima is not known to be a historical figure, and the way in which she is introduced suggests that she is almost certainly just a literary device developed by Plato to express his own ideas. In this theory, we see Plato rejecting the romanticization of sexual love, valuing above all an asexual and all-consuming passion for wisdom and beauty. Plato clearly regards actual physical or sexual contact between lovers as degraded and wasteful forms of erotic expression. Because the true goal of eros is real beauty and real beauty is...
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...take, whether it’s conscious or subconscious your philosophy plays a part in what you are doing. Philosophy gives everyone the opportunity to step back and get a better vision of where you are in life, where you have come from, and it will also give you a better idea of where you are trying to be in life. Philosophy is such a broad and thought provoking subject, and it is important to understand that philosophy is a thought process you practice. Philosophy is not something you learn out of a text book. Everyone has to nurture this thought process sometimes referred to as critical thinking. The actual breakdown of the word has a Greek origin it is two Greek roots: philein, a word that means “love,” and sophia, a word that means wisdom. When you put the two words together, it means “the love or pursuit of wisdom”. Philosophy can be considered to be many different truths, depending on the person and the ideas they have embraced through time. With the different twist and turns that philosophy can take, there had to be some way of classifying the different approaches. The approaches were broken down into 6 areas to be able to classify what type of research was being done. Philosophers like Bertrand Russell brought to our attention that we are quick to embrace the scientific explanation of the world but the Metaphysics or the idea that there may be an afterlife cannot be proven with a microscope. Epistemology is the study of identifying what we know and why we know it. This is sometimes...
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...in detail in his book Phaedrus. General ideas of the soul were discussed along with a metaphor to fully describe what the soul is, tying in his concept of the realm of the forms. Plato believed that the self was just the soul. He saw the soul as a separate entity from the body and even thought that the human body was bad. Since souls are separate from the body, they are eternal, never can be created nor destroyed. “Every soul is immortal. That’s because whatever is always in motion is immortal, while what moves, and is moved by, something else stops living when it stops moving” (Plato, 1995, p.29). He also believed that souls were the source of movement for humans. Souls can be compared to God because god is a source...
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...Augustine vs. Plotinus Augustine began to distance himself from Manicheism soon after he moved toRome, which he had been interested in since he was a teenager, in 372. As he went through a difficult period in his life, which contributed to his increasingly disinterest with Manicheism, the Academics, the disciples of Arcesilaus and the New Academy briefly engaged him with the skeptical view. This viewpoint was that everything was a matter of doubt and asserted that we can know nothing for certain. The main argument within this essay is to ask whether Augustine, from previously being tempted by skepticism, managed to overcome this through his writing, and whether his dismissal of skepticism holds up as a major criticism for others. After his conversion, he wrote Contra Academicos 386-387, focused mainly on arguments against skepticism and the ability to have knowledge. His ultimate victory over the attraction of skepticism he expressed within this, and laid claim that we can ultimately possess knowledge. In the Contra Academicos Augustine writes of wisdom leading to happiness, and knowledge of truth to wisdom. The version of skepticism that Augustine takes from Cicero’s Academic books is that adopted by Cicero himself. The skepticism Augustine concerns himself is the form it took in the Platonic ‘New’ Academy from the middle of the third century, to which the key figure was Arcesilaus in the earliest stages, to the middle of the first century where Carneades came to prominence...
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...In the Symposium, Plato presents many points on Love (Eros) which are laid out by different speakers in the honor of Agathon. Phaedrus, Aristodemus, Pausanias, Socrates, Agathon, Aristophanes and Eryximachus all dedicated their symposium to the understanding of love by giving their opinion of how a person should commend it. Near the ending of the speech by Socrates, a beautiful, wealthy and drunk Alcibiades enters the event. This triggers the beginning of Alcibiades speech of travesty, which is disguised in praise, reciting the “secret nature” of Socrates to the guests at hand. The purpose of adding Alcibiades’ speech at the end is to display the nuisance with social expectations for love and the inability to meet them. The character of Alcibiades is used to portray the tragic nature of good merit and the tragedy. He is unable to gain virtue through sexual relations, and there for is forced to remain mortal. The purpose of the speech at whole is to celebrate the fertility of heterosexual relationships and how they are justified in giving birth to children. Alcibiades wants to engage in a relationship with Socrates which in terms is a homosexual relationship. To justify homosexual relationships, they would have had to prove them as productive as a heterosexual relationship. Meaning if what a heterosexual relationship can justify through Diotima’s speech is a child and a relationship which can be carried on in the future has to be the same of what a homosexual relationship can...
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...Elie Wiesel’s Loss of Innocence There comes a time in one’s life where a tragic event results in the loss of innocence and an increase in knowledge. Unfortunately this is one of life’s few promises. Some experience this ablution a lot sooner than they should. In children who survived the holocaust in concentration camps, their innocence was taken as soon as their ordinary everyday life was imposed upon by the Nazis. In Elie Wiesel’s book Night, he describes himself as an innocent teenager, a child whose innocence was taken from him as the result of the nefariousness performed by the Nazis in World War Two. Elie and his family were transported to Birkenau where his family was torn apart, leaving him with his father, his sisters and his mother. Once they were separated, he began to slowly lose his innocence. Towards the end of 1941, in the small village of Sighet, Hungary, twelve-year-old Elie Wiesel spent most of his time studying the Talmud. Elie was one of four children born to his mother and father. Hilda was the eldest, then Bea, he was the third, and Tzipora was the youngest. The two eldest sisters helped the parents run the family store while Elie stayed home to study. Elie was very passionate about the theology of his religion, Judaism. He studied Talmud by day and by night he would go to the synagogue to pray. One of his main interests was Kabbalah which is an aspect of Jewish mysticism. Elie asked his father to find him a master to guide him in his...
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